The Arizona Trail – Anderson Mesa

It seems that any worthwhile hike in Arizona is going to start with something like what we find in the above image…waking a couple of hours before dawn and driving for those same hours to make it to the trail-head before the potential swarm of other humans and the known and persistent presence of the warming/heating/baking sun….

It was 4:37 am in the first image and then 7:12 am with this next one…145 miles later….

In my estimation, nothing compares with the sunrise on a forest trail…or a forest trail at sunrise…a most wonderful place to be on a September Sunday morning.

Many people know of the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail…but maybe not so many know about the local version of those adventures, The Arizona Trail. This is a cross-state trek that literally goes from the US/Mexico border in the south, all the way up to the Arizona/Utah border in the north…800 miles of trail broken into 43 segments that can be accessed from various locations and hiked individually…as simple out and back day hikes, or as overnight backpacking treks…or however else one might desire to experience them. You can click on each of the above trail names to be taken to their internet home pages.

For those of you who have been following/visiting the blog for at least the last four years, you might remember various posts about Marshall Lake, Fisher Point, hiking in the Coconino National Forest, etc. The majority of those posts came from my hikes along the segment of the Arizona Trail that goes north from Marshall Lake to beyond Fisher Point…a stretch of the trail that is known as Passage 31: Walnut Canyon.

While it would be something of a dream to be able to thru-hike the entirety of the trail, the constraints of my life as it currently exists only allow for occasional forays. That said, I have hiked the southern part of Passage 31 four times over the last four years, so it seemed like it was time to try another segment…and for simplicity’s sake, I chose the one that heads south from the same trail-head at Marshall Lake…Passage 30: Anderson Mesa. For those interested, the numbering of the passages goes from south to north…Mexico to Utah.

If I’m going to be especially honest about this particular adventure, there was nothing thrilling about it…the only landscape change was going from my parking location down closer to Marshall Lake, up through a couple hundred yards of oak and pine forest, and then onto the plain of the mesa.

There was a lot of open sky…and prairie grass that was much greener than one can see in these photos…. Again with the honesty thing, I should include that it was still interesting…largely because it was different and unknown.

The middle “peak” in the above image of the San Francisco Peaks is actually the highest point in Arizona…Humphrey’s Peak…at 12,633 feet in elevation. I spent the better part of a Sunday climbing up and down that mountain three Septembers past…a wonderful and crowded adventure that you might remember from this post.

As I hiked and as the hours pressed onward, I kept waiting for something “more,” which didn’t and couldn’t really happen, given that I was hiking on the top of an essentially flat mesa…I had to look closely…to consciously view things with “new” eyes….open ones…watching eyes…even then it became a bit……..monotonous.

If I had had unlimited time and endurance, I could have gone the entire length of this particular segment, which was something like 17 miles…and I would have encountered scenery that would have been less…….monotonous.

But…the mountains were there, behind me, the temperature was in the 50s at the start of the hike and only in the mid-70s toward the end…so it was still a good…pleasant adventure.

Less than a mile from the trail-head, the trail passed the Lowell Observatory…and then it passed Prime Lake and Vail Lake. From what I could see, only Prime Lake contained water. Both bodies weren’t “lakes” as we often imagine them, but were more of marshes whose water levels would raise with the seasons. They were also both fenced and posted with signs identifying them as preserves or refuges for wildlife and migrating birds.

The open space in the above image is Lower Lake Mary…not holding any water when I was there…but which contained some during my visit last year which allowed me to capture this image…something I was hoping to duplicate on the morning of this hike.

Hiking across the open plains of the mesa did bring a couple of “firsts” with this adventure…the first time I saw antelope and a coyote while out on a hike. I have seen them plenty of other times, mostly while driving, but this was the first occasion of actually encountering them out in the “wild.”

The first image of the San Francisco Peaks above was from 8:26 am…and the one below was from 11:23 am…three busy hours in the jet-stream hauling clouds from their wherever places to the high desert and mountains of Northern Arizona.

Thank you for visiting. I hope you enjoyed this brief glimpse into The Arizona Trail…..

I would say that hiking in the mountains is quite a bit more satisfying…the effort to get there…the views…everything. And yes, I did get to see some animals and I was out of the office. Not to be unoriginal, but even a bad day of hiking in my experience is better than a good day at the office.

No…I don’t think I’ll be repeating this stretch of it. I still enjoy the hike going north from this trail-head and will likely repeat that one, but no…not this bit. I’ll very likely pick up the trail again much further south.

To me, it looks extraordinary. I can imagine who refreshing walking along that trail would be after a week spent in Phoenix, and the antelope – wow! I’ll take those glowing grasses too, and the beautiful flowers, whatever they are. 🙂 And the view….you made the most of all of it, even if the walk got a bit repetitious. I like the first shot, too! 🙂 Have a good week, Scott.

BTW, it’s good to know about the Arizona Trail. I found out recently there’s a similar Pacific Northwest Trail that goes across several states up here, and a section of it is just minutes from where I live. This is what the website says:
“The Pacific Northwest Trail is a 1,200-mile continuous path from the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Northwest Trail is a corridor for long-distance non-motorized recreation through some of the most spectacular and diverse landscapes in the United States. In 2009, it was designated by Congress as a National Scenic Trail.” I like knowing that the longer one lives, the more trails like these one learns about. Just knowing they’re there makes me glad.

I just stopped by the website for The Pacific Northwest Trail and it looks like it would be a wonderful place to hike…wonderful places, rather…with a bunch of access points along the way for day hikers, as well. Wow…. Looks like I just discovered another destination for when I run away from city life…. 🙂

I’m glad you did, Gunta…and no, aside from the initial couple hundred yards (if that) from the trail-head, there was not really any discernible altitude gain. And yes, mid to high 70s is a bit warm for your Pacific Northwest self…and so is the sunrise shots…but I think you would enjoy it anyway if you ever ventured in this direction. 🙂